As the number of channels available to television viewers has increased, along with the diversity of the programming content available on such channels, it has become increasingly challenging for television viewers to identify television programs of interest. Historically, television viewers identified television programs of interest by analyzing printed television program guides. Typically, such printed television program guides contained grids listing the available television programs by time and date, channel and title. As the number of television programs has increased, it has become increasingly difficult to effectively identify desirable television programs using such printed guides.
More recently, television program guides have become available in an electronic format, often referred to as electronic program guides (EPGs). Like printed television program guides, EPGs contain grids listing the available television programs by time and date, channel and title. Some EPGs, however, allow television viewers to sort or search the available television programs in accordance with personalized preferences. In addition, EPGs allow for on-screen presentation of the available television programs.
While EPGs allow viewers to identify desirable programs more efficiently than conventional printed guides, they suffer from a number of limitations, which if overcome, could further enhance the ability of viewers to identify desirable programs. For example, many viewers have a particular preference towards, or bias against, certain categories of programming, such as action-based programs or sports programming. Thus, the viewer preferences can be applied to the EPG to obtain a set of recommended programs that may be of interest to a particular viewer.
Thus, a number of tools have been proposed or suggested for recommending television programming. The Tivo™ system, for example, commercially available from Tivo, Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., allows viewers to rate shows using a “Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down” feature and thereby indicate programs that the viewer likes and dislikes, respectively. In this manner, the Tivo™ system implicitly derives the viewer's preferences from previous television programs that the viewer liked or did not like. Thereafter, the TiVo receiver matches the recorded viewer preferences with received program data, such as an EPG, to make recommendations tailored to each viewer.
In addition, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/519,550, filed Mar. 6, 2000, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Displaying Television Program Recommendations,” displays a list of available programs together with an indication of the recommendation score assigned to each program by a television programming recommender. In one implementation, the numerical scores can be mapped onto a color spectrum or another visual cue, such as size-of-text or rate of blinking, that permits the user to quickly locate programs of interest.
Thus, such tools for recommending television programming provide selections of programs that a viewer might like. Even with the aid of such program recommenders, however, it is still difficult for a viewer to identify programs of interest from among all the options. A need therefore exists for a method and apparatus for recommending television programs that are similar to one or more identified shows. A further need exists for a method and apparatus for generating television program recommendations that is responsive to the current mood of the viewer.